"I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. So I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it." -- Trump, 12/11/18

Words of Advice:

"Never Feel Sorry For Anyone Who Owns an Airplane."-- Tina Marie

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

"Flying the Airplane is More Important than Radioing Your Plight to a Person on the GroundWho is Incapable of Understanding or Doing Anything About It." -- Unknown

"There seems to be almost no problem that Congress cannot, by diligent efforts and careful legislative drafting, make ten times worse." -- Me

There is no "essentially" about it. That's what the Constitution says. If Trump tries this, when it gets to the Supremes, I guess we'll see how the conservative judges adhere to their proclaimed fealty to the plain language of the Constitution.

Monday, October 29, 2018

As you can see, he delivered that statement with all of the empathy and feeling of someone reading aloud the side-effects of a prescription drug.

Trump owns this one. Neo-Nazis enthusiastically supported Trump in ‘16 and, when it was pointed out to him that prominent racists were supporting him, such as David Duke, Trump denied knowing anything about Duke or the various neo-Nazi groups. He hired staff members with ties to neo-Naz groups here and abroad. When the Tiki-torch Nazis were marching and chanting racist and anti-semitic slogans, the best that Trump could do was say that there were bad people "on many sides". He has explicitly engaged in ethnic and religious attacks and has disavowed or apologized for none of them. He repeatedly makes racist claims that have no degree of truth.

Sunday, October 28, 2018

I respectfully suggest that the esteemed Mayor of Pittsburgh is very wrong.

It will take little research to determine that the response to state laws imposing registration and/or disposition of "assault-style" rifles and large-capacity magazines have been widely ignored. So, barring an extremely expensive buyback campaign, those guns are going to be there for a very long time. Saying that we can fix this problem by passing more gun-control laws is a pipe dream.

The police are not the answer. The cops were on the scene in minutes, but that was still enough time for the Asswipe to kill nearly a dozen people.

We are, sadly, going to see more of this. Asswipe will be lionized by the neo-Nazis as a hero who had the stones to do more than post nasty things online. The shootings by the Asswipes of Columbine have inspired a significant number of copycats. It takes no great feat of prognostication to suppose that we won't see more.

What we cannot do: Overreact. As much as I despise the neo-Nazis and their fellow-travelers, trying to stamp them out is folly. Maybe watch them to the full extent permitted by the Constitution, but keep in mind that the Asswipe of Squrrel Hill had no criminal history. There was nothing to him, other than his running his digital mouth, untl yesterday.

Posting guards may make people feel protected. But whether they are professionals...

...or not...

...the main function of a prominent armed guard is to function as a canary in a coal mine: You know there's a problem when he gets shot.

I doubt if many houses of worship are going to tolerate being locked on their Sabbaths. Too many people are coming. Having a security screening checkpoint does a few things: First, it bunches up people. When the attacker's goal is carnage, a mass of potential victims is a desirable thing. Second, unless the screening is under surveillance by more than one armed guard, it's little more than security theater. Third, it may be counterproductive, in that it can discourage attendance.

What can be done?

Change the location of services from time to time. This could also be a nice way for other faiths to stand with the synagogues: They could swap out with the local synagogue on a weekend. The announcements would have to be by word-of-mouth or by ail. Post nothing online until after the fact.

If your congregation bans bringing cell phones to worship, rethink that. Yesterday, people who escaped the carnage were running to houses down the street so they could call the cops.

I know it's anathema to a lot of people to bring guns to services, but rethink that. Active shooter training is nice, but being able to do more than passively resist is better. Three or six people popping at the Asswipe with even J-frames might have had a positive outcome. It could not have been worse.

Finally, there was a time, several decades ago, when there was a wave of synagogue bombing throughout the South. RUMINT was that Mossad quietly contacted the FBI and told them "either you fix this problem or we will." That may be an option once more.

October 26th marked the sixtieth anniversary of the 707's first revenue fight by Pan Am: Idlewild to Le Bourget. Ten months later, the 707-320s began flying, which didn't normally require a fuel stop at Gander or Shannon.

The far-right, whether they be described as "alt-right", "neo-Nazis", or "white nationalists", all comprise different flavors of a movement that, at its core, uses violence and threats to intimidate everyone.

If thy are hoping that Trump would excercise any degree of self-control, they have to be severeely delusional.

Trump denies it, of course, but Trump lies about everything. Like the overly large toddler that he s, Trump takes umbrage at anyone even mildly suggesting to him that he shouldn't do something that he wants to.

I wonder what is Arabic for "Deputy Fife". The Saudis have said that "he left on his own," "he died in a fistfight", "he was was accidentally killed when he tried to leave" and only now are they suggesting that it was a hit.

The Turks claim to have surveillance footage of Saudi diplomatic vehicles going into a forest a few days befre, presumably to scout or prepare places to dump body parts The Saudis may be in theposition of having to acknowledge at least part of the truth, since none of their lies are standing up to scrutiny.

Trump has been debasing the political rhetoric in this country for a very long time, going back to his racist birtherism, calling Mexicans rapists and murderers, approving of violence against reporters, saying that there were "good people" among the neo-Nazis and calling the free press "the enemy of the people".

Trump is a master of hateful rhetoric. He doesn't use a dog-whistle, he uses an air horn. For him to now blame the press for the current tone is laughable.

Some guy who apparently was mentally ill kicked in the doors of a television station and was shot for his trouble and that's of national/global significance?

What sort of drugs are being used by David Muir? He's not just the news reader, he's the frigging managing editor. He, presumably, has a lot of say in what stories make it onto the air. This is an important story; far more important than Trump scuttling the INF Treaty, a story that has gotten barely a mention from Mr. Muir.

See, global destabilization by Trump, Xi and Putin is a far less important issue to ABC than some missing kid.

To any Log Cabin Republicans reading this: Do you seriously believe that Trump is going to stop there? You guys are next. The Christian Taliban wants to reverse the Supreme Courts rulings (Lawrence v. Texas, U.S. v. Windsor, and Obergefell v Hodges) that decriminalized being gay and granted gay folk the right to marry. Trump thinks he can probably get there since the Court now includes Justice "I Like Beer and Groping Women" Kavanaugh.

The Christian Taliban want to go back to the days when LGBT people were outlaws in the ancient sense, that they were beyond the protection of the laws. Trump will go along with that because the CT are part of his base.

Hell, Trump would push to overturn Loving v Virginia, if he thought he could. That would please his Nazi base.

Except that the statements are in no wise credible. They are almost certainly utter lies. Trump has been told as much.

But Trump doesn't care. He is as utterly amoral a man who has occupied the Oval Office since Nixon and is possibly the most corrupt since Harding. Nixon did a lot of things, but as far as I know, he didn't help cover up the murder of a journalist.

Trump his doing just that. He is an accessory to the murder of a legal American resident after the fact. It is becoming abundantly clear that there is nothing too low or evil for Trump to stoop to.

Friday, October 19, 2018

Riight. A sixty-year old man who appeared to be somewhat obese got into a fight with a bunch of goons half his age. And the Saudis brought an autopsy expert with a bone saw to serve coffee. The boxes that they used to bring out his dismembered body were brought to pack presents for Eid Al-Fitr.

The Atlantic calls it "inventive and indulgent". They got the second part right; somebody indulged the director when they greenlit this turd.

My recommendation: Save your money and the 3 hours of time (with previews) that you could put to good use by doing almost anything else. Even a nap would be a better use of your time. If I had a set of noise-canceling headphones with me, I'd have slept through it.

Anyone who would buy that story is either a complete chucklehead or has been bought and paid for. Maybe both.

The idea that a "team of rouge killers", being fifteen Saudi officials who went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, tortured, killed and dismembered Khashoggi, and then flew out with his remains is laughable. Especially when one considers that Saudi Arabia is an absolute and despotic monarchy. I doubt very much that this was a "turbulent priest" killing.

Trump, though, is desperate to find a way out of this that doesn't involve the Saudis retaliating against his business interests, so he is grasping at feeble reeds.

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Friday, October 12, 2018

I stripped out all of the preliminaries, but if you want to watch them, here ya go.

I was somewhat surprised that there wasn't a problem with running a revolver with an external hammer. It might be different with a hammer-mounted firing pin, though.

Next up, Jerry Miculek shoots S&W's new Model 19:

The Carry Comp looks interesting. I might be a recoil-wimp, but I can definitely tell the difference between firing .357s out of a K-frame as opposed to a L- or N-frame gun. Shooting .357s out of a Model 27 is fun. It's not fun from a older Model 19. It's still sort of fun out of a 686. I have a steel J-frame .357; I'm not about to shoot .357s through it.

My feeling is that with short barrels, the difference between .38+P and .357 is a lot more noise, muzzle blast and not much more velocity. I suspect that if you had to shoot a short-barrel .357 indoors in a self-defense situation with no ear protection, you'd stand a good chance of losing all or most of your hearing.

One could argue, I guess, that only proves that Trump is a very expensive whore, which is no surprise. It wouldn't have taken the arms deal; the Saudis know that all they have to do is engage in some oleaginous flattery to fluff up Trump's ego and he's their man.

As far as I know, it's the first manned launch in which the crew survived an in-flight booster failure.

More to the point, depending on how quickly and safely the Russians can ready another Soyuz, it's possible that the ISS may be abandoned, if only temporarily. I suspect that neither Boeing's Starliner or SpaceX's Dragon 2 will be ready to take a crew to the ISS within the next two years.

What is known for certain is that Khashoggi was last seen entering the consulate. The Saudis say that he's not there, but that's pretty easy to say if they dismembered Khashoggi and took his remains with them.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

I'd like to think that these proposed restrictions are as unconstitutional as fuck, but with a Supreme Court that includes a justice who promised to have his revenge on those who opposed him, all bets are off.

Astute readers of this blog may have noticed that I haven't written about flying since last year. If you've realized that and you read the previous post, then you probably have put two and two together.

Which is this: Last winter, I developed a medical condition. I am fine, now, mostly. The specialist regards me as a "textbook success story". I can go about my everyday life without any indication to any casual observer that I've got what I have.

With one exception: I cannot act as pilot-in-command of a powered aircraft.

One thing I have learned from going to sea and then well over a thousand hours of flying is that there is nothing to be gained from wringing hands and moaning over how one has gotten into a given situation. This is not the same as learning a lesson from having gotten into a situation.[1] When you're in a situation, you ignore all of that background noise and do what needs must.

Anyway, if you'd be interested in a four-place taildragger that's a solid flying airplane, but no beauty, scroll down, find my email address and drop me a line.
_____________________________________________[1] In this case, the cause is "idiopathic", which is medicalese for "we haven't got a fucking clue as to why."

The attraction for LSAs is that no medical certification paperwork is required. But, and this is a "but" that gets ignored, every time a LSA (or Basic Med) pilot flies, that pilot is certifying that he or she has no disqualifying medical conditions.

What this means is that if there is a problem that results in bending metal or attracts the FAA's attention, you can get in some trouble for essentially fibbing about being fit to fly. The insurance company can deny coverage.

So if you have a disqualifying medical condition, LSA gets you nothing more than what has been traditionally available: Gliders, balloons, and single-seat ultralights.

Sunday, October 7, 2018

BOAC was the first to offer transatlantic service with the Comet 4, which began sixty years ago this month. However, it was widely apparent that the Comet 4 was inferior to the Boeing 707-120, to the point that BOAC ordered 707s years before they took delivery of their first Comet 4.

Trump and his family have apparently committed tax fraud, in that they evaded paying over $500 million in taxes because of the Trumps' schemes.

This may be part of the reason why Trump's refusing to release his tax returns. He couldn't be prosecuted, but all of the Trumps involved could be civilly sued for the unpaid taxes.

Trump is nothing more than a crook, a con man who has been peddling a lie that he's a self-made billionaire. But he's nothing of the sort. He's a fraud who has dumped tens of millions of Americans; a lot of whom contine to deny they've been duped.

Monday, October 1, 2018

A Simple Favor did not suck. Since it's a suspense movie, I'm sort of restrained in talking about it.

White Boy Rick did suck, but a friend whom I saw it with liked it. Other than "only a certified fool would take the word of an FBI agent", I'll b damned if I could gather a point from the movie. It moved at a glacial pace and was about as interesting.

There are reports that the White House has told the FBI to limit the people that they interviewed to Ford, Ramirez and Mark Judge. Maybe under pressure, Trump has allowed the FBI to interview everyone they may want to talk to.

So I don't know where this is going to go. On the other hand, Trump says that he's keeping an open mind. Which I'm pretty confident is a fucking lie.

I guess that getting on the Supreme Court is diferent. For in most job interviews I've ever heard of or sat in (from either side of the table), if the interview gets into discussing how much the applicant drank or whether or not the applicant sexually assaulted people, that interviewee was pretty much toast.

Rule No. 5: Terms of Service: Political appointees of the Obama and Bush Administrations may not read this blog unless they (i) post a comment confessing same and (ii) acknowledge that both men are war criminals. This blog may not be read by members of the Arizona Legislature.

Violation of this term is a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C) and you're off to share a cell with Chris Christie, asswipe.

Rule No. 6: If I wanted you to write a "guest post", I'd ask you. Don't bother asking me to put one up from you. I won't. Start yer own goddamn blog.You Have Been Warned.